I did a quick google on great authors and to be honest found very few mentions of females. Seems Anne Rice holds her own but outside of that arena there are not a lot female names in the "greatest writer of all time" category. It seems you are on to something here.Trish wrote:So is the issue with music producers and publishers or is it with the artist? I personally think something is art when an artist says it is. Whether or not anyone else thinks it's good or bad is irrelevant. Charles Dickens was enormously successful in his day, not unlike the success level of Meyers. There are probably writers with better technical skill than Dickens too. So is Dickens' work for the lowest common denominator? I'm not saying there isn't bad art out there, but it's bad to me. I don't need anyone else to have my standards of what is good. If something is popular maybe it's just very well written and it resonates with people. Need good art be obscure and only appreciated by a few?
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say there might be a little sexism in King's comment too (although I don't think it's on purpose). When Harry Potter first came out, the author used her initials to disguise her gender so as to not bias male readers. I wonder if Stephanie Meyers would be slammed so hard if she was only known as S. Meyers. Generally speaking as a society we tend to be more critical of successful women than successful men.
As far as how many people it takes to make art good... I would say that depends on the artist's ego. Art is art good or bad. If it gets a reaction, then you have achieved something
